Player Review

I've been running a Serie A squad since day one, and after selling my RTTK Vidal and Tonali in a drunken haze in order to buy Di Natale I really needed a competent CDM for my squad. I have winter wonder Milinkovic-Savic, but he's more of a box to box type player. So, when this card was released I was quite intrigued by it and eventually decided to buy it. I'd been tempted by his TOTW cards but the stats didn't justify the outlay, but this one seemed worth shelling out for, especially with the potential for his rating to increase. After reading reviews and watching reviews on YouTube I thought that I was on to a winner, I was so wrong.

He's decent enough, but no way does he justify the price tag for a number of reasons, which i shall list:

1. 3*3* - If he is put under pressure and has to quickly release the ball, then the 3* weak foot means that it becomes a real lottery as to whether the pass that you play will actually reach a team mate. If you happen to get caught on his wrong foot then the pass just spoons off to an opponent. Likewise, without the access to 4* skill moves it is very hard to get onto his strong foot under pressure.
2. Height/Strength - Constantly gets bullied, even by players the same size as him. You try to shield the ball, he loses. 50/50 challenges, he loses. Long balls/goal kicks, get's outjumped. Also, because he's so little he very rarely seems to be able to stick his legs out far enough to intercept a pass.
3. He's not a CDM - By this, I mean that with his 3*3*, lack of size and strength etc he shouldn't be playing CDM, but logically with his stats that's the only place that you can put him. He's not good enough attacking-wise to play CAM and his passing isn't good enough to play CM (despite actually looking excellent on paper). Defensively (especially with either shadow or anchor, and I've tried both) he should excel at CDM, but because of his lack of strength, height and weight he really doesn't play well there for the previously mentioned reasons.
4. Work rates - His high/high workrates seem to constantly have him out of position despite any instructions that you choose to give him. I've tried stay back, drop between defenders, balanced..... yet he always seems to be in the wrong place. The worst thing is that he'll try to support further forward and then mess up a pass or get dispossessed due to his awful in game passing and weak foot, then he'll run back to defend and be too small and weak to either intercept or win the ball back.

I don't want to sound like I'm totally hating on him, but I've felt that if I had someone else in my team then my games wouldn't be so stressful. I feel like he's a bit of a passenger, and if he was sent off I wouldn't miss him at all because I'm constantly having to bring Milinkovic-Savic back to bail him out (and he actually has been sent off for me; I didn't notice for most of the game because I skipped the red card cut scene). I hear the argument that he's the 'Italian Kante', but that's not accurate at all. Kante knows what he is, an out and out CDM. The problem with Barella is that with all his stats, physical attributes and skill moves and weak foot and work rates he doesn't know what he is. I won't lie, there's been a couple of matches where he's done ok and I start to think that I must be weird for not rating him, but then the next game he's making my life more difficult.

The saving grace for me is that he's very likely to get upgrades and that I've already made a profit on him. I bought him for 280k and as of the time of writing he's selling for 340k. I'm planning to keep hold of him until he gets his 4 in a row and then selling him, but before that I think I'll be buying Tonali or Vidal again to be my CDM. Maybe he'll get his upgrade and go to 90 overall and prove me wrong, but unfortunately his days as a member of my club are numbered.

I really really really wanted to like this card, but I can only be honest and say that he has been a big disappointment. If he was below 100k then I probably wouldn't be so harsh in my evaluation of him, but for what he is selling for I expect a lot more than what he is offering. Thank god I'm guaranteed a profit. If he was 50k for example I'd say that he's an ok midfielder, but for over 300k I expect a lot more than ok.